Artists are typically trained to think of figure and ground as separate layers. That is reality can be approximated as a series of separate layers. However, translating this technique to electronic display systems has been problematic. For example, stereoscopic displays try to break the entire volume into voxels, and suffer compromises because of over generalization. In another example, a lenticular system with polarized glasses generates only one view of an object, and suffers from motion parallax. In still another example, a system using both lenticular and stereoscopic approaches produces several views of an image, but at the expense of image resolution.
In another system, virtual objects can be displayed using display systems incorporating mirrors. For example, a heads-up-display (HUD) is configured to project images onto a passive screen. The screen can present data projected from an underlying display layer. As such, the user is also able to view past the screen to a background within the same line of sight. In that manner, the user is able to view the data displayed on the screen and a background image with the head of the user positioned normally. For example, a pilot can view data without looking down and taking eyes from the windscreen of the aircraft.
However, images projected by these traditional HUD displays inadequately exhibit three dimensional qualities. For example, the images displayed using a HUD do not have the illusion of continuous depth. That is, due to technical limitations, objects appear to be flat, with each object on a separate and distinguished viewing plane. As such, because the viewing planes are separated by large distances, no continuity can be achieved within a particular object.
What is desired is three dimensional display system that is able to provide objects and images having continuous depth.